Karl Albrecht

DEFINITION of 'Karl Albrecht'

The German billionaire entrepreneur who founded discount supermarket chain Aldi and one of the richest people in the world according to Forbes. As of 2010, Aldi had more than 4,000 stores in Germany plus another 8,000-plus stores in Australia, France, Great Britain, Greece, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland and the United States amongst other countries. It's biggest competitor is another German discount supermarket chain, Lidl.

BREAKING DOWN 'Karl Albrecht'

In addition to groceries, Aldi also sells skin care products and some household items. Aldi primarily sells its own brand of products. Other ways the store keeps costs down include charging customers for shopping bags, not accepting credit cards or charging a fee to accept them and using a coin-machine system to lend shopping carts to consumers so they will return them to the store.